Guest essay: Give New York’s libraries their due

New York state library advocates from Niagara Falls to Montauk Point are not happy with Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 4.7 percent cut to library aid for the 2014-15 fiscal year. This proposal is particularly troublesome, highlighted by the fact that he is also proposing significant new tax cuts for wealthy New Yorkers and at the same time, boasting about New York state operating at a surplus.

No explanation was provided by the governor’s office for this undeserved reduction in library aid.

These devastating cuts would disproportionately harm poor and working families who benefit from library programs and services. These cuts would also reduce aid to library systems, dismantle coordinated collection development, compromise hospital library services, eliminate shared automation and reduce aid to individual public libraries.

Gov. Cuomo continues to ignore state education law that mandates library funding be linked with population and census statistics — which would mean the state should be funding libraries at $102 million. The governor’s budget only provides $81.6 million in library aid — the same that libraries and library systems received 16 years ago in 1997.

New York taxpayers should be asking their lawmakers to properly maintain New York state’s critical information infrastructure and enable libraries to continue delivering education and enrichment services by addressing critical 21st century technology needs.

What is even more frustrating is the idea that total library funding represents less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the entire state budget. Libraries and library systems give New York taxpayers the best investment possible when matched against any public service — bar none.

Libraries and library systems are the educational and intellectual lubrication that keeps the gears of New York’s economy moving in the right direction.

Libraries and library systems are part of the solution when solving some of our biggest challenges we face as a civil society. Together, we can build a better New York.

Library advocates everywhere should be asking the governor’s office and their state lawmakers to rethink this cut and rectify library aid during the coming weeks.

Overmyer is president of Civil Service Employees Association/City of Rochester Library Workers Local 828 Unit 7420.